Currently, a majority of two-year colleges in the United States are located in rural areas. Small, rural-serving community colleges are instrumental to the survival of the communities they reside in, as well as vital to the stakeholders they serve. How does being a rural community college present specialized challenges and in what ways do the…

Thanks to its dedicated teachers and committed students, Massachusetts leads the nation in student achievement and classroom innovation. Massachusetts has made education its top priority because it's the path to a more fulfilling life, a more rewarding career and a richer society. The author has personally experienced the transformative power of…

In this webinar, Dr. Joyce Epstein, Director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships and the National Network of Partnership Schools, discussed what the research says about effective family engagement. The webinar and PowerPoint presentation are also available. A brief list of resources is included.

Modern automobile maintenance, like most skilled-trades jobs, is more than simple nuts and bolts. Today, skilled-trades jobs might mean hydraulics, computerized monitoring equipment, electronic blueprints, even lasers. As chief executive officer of Grainger, a business-to-business maintenance, repair, and operating supplies company that…

In September 2008 the author created an encounter between herself and Rick Walker, the Director of Cartwheel Arts, a small community arts company in Rochdale, in the North West of England. As one of the three founding workers of what was then Cartwheel Community Arts in 1984, she hoped to create a conversation which recollected or traced some of…

System offices for community college institutional research differ in many ways from campus offices for community college institutional research. The other chapters in this volume describe salient characteristics of system IR offices, but many readers may want to see a direct comparison of system IR offices to campus IR offices in the community…

The silence regarding Appalachia is mirrored in the relative scarcity of focused studies regarding Appalachian dialect, composition, and classroom issues. Little work has been done exploring the ways the composition classroom, concerned as it is with language and the production of discourse, can affect Appalachian students' linguistic and social…

The adult basic education field in the United States is now being encouraged to shift to a "career pathways" orientation by policy research organizations, federal and state agencies, community college organizations, business groups, and private foundations. In such an approach, adult basic education programs work with workforce…

Newbrough's Third Position is discussed in terms of its utility as a framework within which to understand and resolve interpersonal differences, seemingly irresolvable diametric differences, and conflictual situations. The framework's essential elements and its application is illustrated through the presentation of a series of fictitious scenarios…

Traditional community college CEOs who are experiencing an increased demand for services, as well as reduced funding, have a choice to make: They can worry and complain, or they can change their operating model. In this article, the author calls for CEOs to have a clear focus on how they operate their organizations. The author argues that it is…

In 2007 the faculty at Miami Dade College joined the student body in signing a covenant "to build a foundation for the success of future students." The event capped a two-year effort on the part of the faculty to articulate the foundations of a 21st-century college education and codify them into 10 clear statements. However, creating a…

There is a sea change occurring in community colleges. It involves institutional leaders, faculty, and student services professionals. It is evident in campus-level discussions, conference sessions, and proliferating publications and its primary beneficiaries are students. The change is the increasing occurrence of honest conversations prompted by…

The educational approach views the community of practice as a community of teachers and students who share common rules and values, information and experiences through dialogue and collaboration. Three doctoral theses are in progress at the University of Athens which study the possibilities of creating a community of practice in three different…

In this essay, I remind readers of the importance of using SoTL work in a range of ways and settings at different levels to increase our impact on student learning as well as institutional and disciplinary cultures. I briefly discuss and illustrate six strategies already in use on which we can build. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

The author's reflections on this 25th anniversary of ACT UP's founding were spurred by a comment made to her recently that indicated that ACT UP's memory and legacy are haunted by the perception that it was racist. In this essay, the author considers the claim that ACT UP was a racist organization. In addition to the question of historical…